What has made snails take on wings
and to trade their shells for sails?
Why this rush and stampede by millipedes?
Is it the rumble of thunder or the dark heavy clouds
that announce the gathering storms?
Is it the flurried fury of the beautiful ones in their impotent protests,
Is it the rage of the innocent
or the growing wrath of the wretched?
A parade of childless mothers hurries by
and soon the march past of motherless children
carrying totems of their once impotent fathers to their lively graveyards
The silent whimper of the weak grows large
their numbers also grow with each passing moon
but all this drowned in the strong assured voice of the righteous,
the correct voice of the mighty and the right
The raw raging roar of the mighty
rises high, hoarse and rough,
fills every space, crowds the waves
announcing swathes of freedom, liberation, redemption,
victory and defeat
The voice that defines night and day
also defines right and wrong,
as it clearly and cleanly
sorts out the right from the wrong,
the good from the evil
all this with power, passion, and failing conviction
The voice of the right erases doubts, suppresses doubts
generously traces and defines lines and boundaries of dissent
and discourages all rational efforts
who but the weak can distinguish expediency from morality in these climes and times
expediency, morality and necessity sleep well and deep
strong assured voices waft to assert and to correct
and where the voices are not heeded,
strong arms move to assert and correct
Scattering droplets of peace and planting the seeds of war,
Implanting signposts of order and the foundations of hatred and hopelessness
The lines are drawn bold and clear
Soon the standard bearers of the evil ones
will lie scattered in the dust of shame and defeat
And the standard bearers of the mighty and right
will strut around in celebrations of the triumph of good
soon the sparks from the voice and strong arms of might
will blight every sparkle from the eyes of weaklings,
will brighten the night with balls of flame and heat
and the flames burn, scorch and cleanse
and the deaf, and the blind, the lame and the weak
will swell in their numbers as the drumbeat and rumble and thunder of might arrive
The hymen of the neutral will be shabbily ruptured,
their emblems shredded soon to fly at quarter mast
as their voices and consciences wane weak
and their cowering voices speak with the same clarity of flames
from the wick of a weak palm oil lamp
The rising roar of the right and mighty wafts and floats,
grows and roars and soars
frowns at and drowns other voices
eagle eyes scan abroad for new signs of evil
The drumbeats and chest beatings become strident
Portending thunder from the earth and sky,
Announcing new storms, new downpours,
The approaching storms, the dark clouds announce the future,
they announce a harvest from which the snails now fly,
the lizards, the rats, the millipedes, the antelopes, the elephants are in preparing to fly
all abroad and in search of strong wings and kind winds
And I too should now learn to fly or fry
Reflections 